Great Gatsby the Prevailing Theme

Great Gatsby

The prevailing theme in the Great Gatsby is the quest for the American Dream and, more importantly, how the American Dream is unattainable. It is a tale full of symbolism, where the American Dream is the quest of money, as symbolized by the green light shining across the lake and the only person who seems to have obtained the American Dream, Jay Gatsby, is anything but happy and satisfied. In order to get his dream, Daisy, he uses his money to throw lavish parties where others can come and have a taste of the wealth known as the American Dream.

The story is told during the 1920's and is a critique and portrayal of both Gatsby's and the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald's view of the American Dream in the roaring twenties. At its core, the book is about American society's failure to realize its potential and to obtain the real dream.

The characters and setting for the novel embody the stereo-type of the American dream: privileged young people surrounded by lavish mansions, fancy cars and an abundance of material possessions. As Nick says, he is surrounded by "youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves." (Fitzgerald, 157).

Clearly the idea of the American Dream as a prison is not much of a dream at all, but this is exactly the theme of the novel- that wealth and riches are superficial means of covering up the fact that we, society, have failed miserably at attaining the dream we really want, which is love. and, as is clear to Gatsby as he finds himself unable to get Daisy, true love cannot be bought.

Gatsby himself is an interesting character because he alone is the only one who is the ideal "self-made man" of the American Dream. Everyone else he surrounds himself with, particularly the Buchanan's, were born into their wealth and have no notion of the struggle of the American Dream. For instance, Daisy exclaims to her newborn girl, "All right...I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool." (Fitzgerald, p. 21).

Yet Gatsby is the only one who is unhappy and, in the end, finds himself dead. Again, this is another way of Fitzgerald critiquing modern society as being the cause for the death of the American Dream.

Gatsby made himself the success that he is because of his focus on varied aspirations, as evidenced by his resolutions to improve himself kept in a book. However, his single focus on getting Daisy's green light, something he cannot have, creates a motive of greed in Gatsby that he is unable to control and eventually destroys him. For example, Nick talks of Gatsby's idealization of Daisy by saying:

"There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams -- not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion." (Fitzgerald, p. 101).

Even Gatsby himself recognizes this fatal flaw, namely that following his first kiss with Daisy that he "forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God." (Fitzgerald, p. 117).

This comparison to God is also symbolic of the American Dream. America was founded on the belief that this was a country that would act as God by setting moral examples to the rest of the world, like a beacon on a hill. This beacon on the hill was the American Dream. Interestingly, the green light across the dock in the novel represents the American Dream and, like the notion of being God, is utterly unobtainable and will lead one to their demise as they try.